We will be so busy tomorrow, however, that we will forget our petty thoughts. As soon as we see light through the portholes, Pate and Dromel will work the propeller crank as I steer with the fins, and our deepswimmer will rise and move toward the island’s shore. Our little adventure will finally begin.
What will happen then and what we will see not even the new magic users, the mystics, could tell us. If we survive, we might be famous, wildly famous, and possibly rich beyond imagining.
Yet I wonder if this is likely. This voyage was a fool’s gamble from the start. Dromel knows it better than I do, I believe, but he always spouts childish optimism, plainly hiding his true fears. We might find nothing here but death. We might have only a few heartbeats left to us after we reach the shore. We might not even have the time to scream.
I wonder what that will be like, to have never existed.
Time for sleep. More cheerful notes later.
‘Sit”
Day 12, morning
Twig awoke us at dawn. I moved my stiff legs and grunted from the pain that ran through them. I cannot bear to be cramped in this mobile tomb any longer. The air is foul, even with the air tube, and I fear I would kill to escape confinement. Today must be the day we leave, no matter what awaits us.
Little Pate, mumbling unintelligibly, worked on the reflecting tube as the rest of us ate our miserable breakfast rations. To our astonishment, he managed to un-jam the gearbox, and he carefully ratcheted the long reflecting tube up to the surface, so we could view our surroundings. This gave me some concern, as I thought perhaps that shadow wights, if any were hovering in the air above us, could pass through the tube and enter our deepswim-mer, destroying us easily in our marvelous undersea prison. No such event occurred, a point in Dromel’s favor. Perhaps shadow wights truly do not move about in broad daylight, as he stated. I can only hope his wisdom and our luck hold out.
Pate turned the reflecting tube from side to side, then twisted the lens to enhance the focus. He froze, staring with a wide eye into the tube’s lens.
We said nothing, dreading the news. Pate slowly drew back from the reflecting tube and motioned Dromel to view. Without warning, Twig thrust herself into line first and put her eye to the lens before anyone could say a word. Dromel shouted angrily at her, but she would not be budged.
“I don’t see anyone,” she complained. “They must be off somewhere fishing. We will just have to look inside those ratty little houses to find out when they’re coming home.”
It was a moment more before the impact of her words stuck the rest of us. We surged toward the reflecting tube to see the coast of Enstar for ourselves.
Few written records or spoken tales tell of the folk who once lived on the small, southern island of Enstar or its smaller companion, Nostar. We have excellent maps of them made by sailors over many centuries, and these maps show the usual features: villages and towns, roads and paths, legendary sites, a few small harbors. Most inhabitants were surely humans, but few were at all famous, and the islands merited little attention over the course of many centuries.
No records exist today to tell us what became of these people after the Chaos War, three decades ago. No one is known to have ever gone to Enstar and returned to report. However, mystics and scholars murmur disturbing theories about the possible fate of the island people once the shadow wights arrived. Gone, they say, the people are gone. Not fled, not living on the mainland or other islands under assumed names-just gone. The shadow wights did it, tales say, but of course there is no proof, as Dromel once said.
When I finally looked through the reflecting tube to the surface, I clearly saw the remains of a dock and three stone cottages, minus their roofs, on the not-too-distant shore. A half-collapsed barn stood farther behind them with a crude wooden fence before it. A light wind stirred the wild brown grass around the ruins. The eerie scene strained my nerves.
“That old map was right!” said Dromel. His face was pale, but he was ecstatic. “We found the correct fishing village, and Lord Dwerlen’s manor should be just a couple miles away! We made it! We did it!”
The din from the others was almost unbearable, especially from the shrieking Twig, but thankfully it was brief. I share their excitement, but it would be unseemly to display it. In a short while we will set foot on Enstar, the first people since the Chaos War known to do so. At last I will be free of this wretched floating coffin, thanks be to the world.
Dromel is about to hand out the relics that will, with any luck, keep us safe while we explore this lost realm. We each receive one dragonlance head, fastened to a chain necklace. Dromel assures us that if shadow wights are about, the nightmare beings will be kept at a safe distance by the magical radiation from the spearheads. Twig constantly pesters Dromel with questions about our safety, which Dromel states is absolute. She asks about this every day, probably because the subject of the shadow wights distresses him so much and for some perverse reason she likes that. I like to see him so distressed, too, as I had warned him about kender as crew before we left. I will write more from the shore if I am able. If I am not. . it will not matter, and no one will care.
Day 12, midday
I have a few minutes to pass. It is about noon and warm. We are lucky that the sky is clear, though it is windy. We will retreat if clouds come up, as any such darkness would make it easy for shadow wights to travel about. We are in the abandoned village, a few hundred feet in from the shore. All that is left of the place are stone walls and fallen timbers from the roofs. Pate digs for treasure as I write this, using an old shovel we found though he is too short to use it properly. He has found nothing in an hour of digging. He keeps tripping over the dragonlance he is wearing, and he mutters complaints about the length of the chain, how it tangles his feet, and how unnecessary it is with no obvious threat in view. He threatens to take the chain and dragonlance off, though he has been, warned he would be a fool to do so. I have enough reservations to keep my own relic safely around my neck.
Twig found a few cheap rings and necklaces, and she has probably found more hidden away but we won’t know until we empty her pockets and pouches tonight on the deepswimmer. She finds only worthless things for the most part, and these she keeps anyway. I am bored with throwing aside debris, looking for little trinkets. We await word from Hunter, who is off seeking a trail to the manor of this Lord Dwerlen, whoever he was. Dromel has not been very forthcoming about this, chattering on only about treasure. He is exploring along the shore, patiently awaiting Hunter’s return.
The village was once full of fishermen, this we believe. Maybe twelve families lived here. Scattered bits of old clothing can be seen in bushes, in cracks between stones, under logs. No bones anywhere. The place smells as if no human or elf has been here in years. I put one of the pieces of cloth to my muzzle and inhaled slowly. It smelled only like cloth, almost clean of sweat, perfume, or rot. I dropped it and wrinkled my muzzle. It disturbs me profoundly to think of it, even now. If this was once a thriving village, where are the bodies? Something should be left behind. Maybe everyone did flee the island, as I had always believed. Perhaps there are no shadow wights, or at least, none left.